Beginnings

When I look back at my children's lives, I see myself having this huge, wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I blew it.

For all of my children, but especially my oldest and youngest. I made choices that put them into danger. That created instability and fear within their hearts. That traumatized and shattered them, And really, it was all over what strong women around the world who know better now call "a stupid guy" ... and a stupid drug ... meth in a needle.

I chased the guy, well ... once he stopped chasing me, and caught me. You know how that typical tale goes. The quintessential bad boy who claimed to be my knight in shining armor. Turned out I went from one bad mistake to another when it came to men. I was severely co-dependent as well, thinking I needed to have someone in my life to validate me. And of course, he did not validate me. He was a classic, controlling, abusive type ... what I later learned in DV training is called the "Cobra."

At any rate, I wound up throwing away the opportunity to give my children the life they deserved and needed. I take ownership of that and sometimes feel as if I will always be punished on some level for failing them as I did. But in the context of this blog and how this all affected Ali in particular ...

Ali was so young when her father came out of drug treatment and moved back into the house, I want to say at age 2. Within 3 months of his return, he had relapsed and eventually convinced me to start using with him again as well. We started out smoking it this time, a control tactic that lasted about 2 months before we were slamming, and back into the whole rat race life that came with that.

Many stupid and pathetic choices later, we were living in hotels and on people's couches, always out of food, always without resources, always scrounging. People in and out of our lives, and having contact with our family, and having access to our home. It is true I did not personally make the worst of the choices, but I allowed them to happen. I may have been passive and gotten  swept along, but I chose to be that way.

Eventually the bottom fell out. He was arrested, I went to treatment, the younger kids were taken by CPS while my oldest son fell through the legal cracks. I divorced him, I got my kids back, and we all lived happily ever after.

Yeah right ...